If this is your first visit to the Roth Army, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

COS 1984 Article

While the record's highs go higher than you might recall, its lows seem lower now, too
BY TYLER CLARKON FEBRUARY 05, 2019, 5:00AM

If you want a succinct look at the power of Van Halen in 1984, you could do worse than the commercial for the band’s Lost Weekend promotion with MTV. Over the course of 90 seconds, the ad paints an alluring picture: here’s David Lee Roth, flanked by women and presiding over a table strewn with whisky bottles and beer cans, promising fans an endurance-testing two-day blackout (potentially, if the ad’s B-movie visuals are to be believed, including ritual animal sacrifice, boxes of uranium, and a guest appearance by the actual Igor) that sounds less like a concert experience and more like a lightly supervised kidnapping.

“Destination unknown!” he says. “You’ll have no idea where you are, you’ll have no idea where you’re going, and probably no memory of it after you go!”
The reality was more mundane, but no less wanton. As they recounted to Van Halen fan magazine The Inside in 1995, winner Kurt Jefferis and his friend Tom Winnick spent two days in April living what the magazine called “the American boyhood dream, 1984-style” — specifically, binge drinking bottomless beers and whiskeys, trashing Cobo Hall’s green room with a band-led food fight, and mingling with “dozens of dolled-up groupies [prancing] around [and] looking for action.”

In the recollections of that wild weekend, one quote from Winnick stands out. “Eddie’s like a little kid,” Winnick said, “hugging everybody. He came up and gave me a kiss!”

That sense of guileless teenage id had served the band well throughout their careers to that point, infusing party-rock classics from “Runnin’ with the Devil” to “Everybody Wants Some!!” with their irresistible, uninhibited energy. However, it finally spilled fully, fatefully into the mainstream on the band’s sixth record.

Made by four bona fide Lost Boys, 1984 has a bit of Peter Pan in it; it’s an album that never grows up, even as it turns 35 this year. As a musical artifact, the album’s significance (for both Van Halen as a band and for American popular music in general) is unquestionable; as our own Greg Prato recounted in his recent retrospective, the record almost single-handedly brought synthesizers across the bridge from new wave into hard rock and remains the zenith of the band’s commercial viability (though the band’s subsequent “Van Hagar” records all charted higher, none sold as many copies or birthed as many hits).

That power rests within one of the strongest sequencing combos in all of ’80s rock, one that sounds even better with age; taken together, the horizon-spanning synths of “Jump” and the shout-along stomp of “Panama” move the band forward into uncharted territory while quickly reassuring fans that the driving rock wizardry is still along for the ride. The same can be said of the guitar work of Eddie Van Halen, who Rolling Stone’s J.D. Considine praised in his review for “[managing] to expand his repertoire of hot licks, growls, screams, and seemingly impossible runs to wilder frontiers than you could have imagined.”

While the record’s highs go higher than you might remember, its lows seem lower now, too. Much of that has to do with our own current moment. As a cultural artifact, the back half of the record (and the lost weekend-filled tour that accompanied it) also embodies and emboldens the kind of consequence-free debauchery and ambient, unavoidable sexism that we’ve spent the last two years giving its long-overdue reckoning. It’s not just “Hot for Teacher” (though, at the risk of sounding like Tipper Gore, the accompanying video aged very poorly); “Drop Dead Legs” is a literal list of women’s body parts, “I’ll Wait” finds David Lee Roth ogling and obsessing over a pretty lady in a magazine, and “Girl Gone Bad” helped inspire this summation from Chuck Klosterman: “Do not discount Van Halen as a band who could only write about women who became porn stars; as evidenced here, they were equally proficient at writing about women who became prostitutes.”

This certainly isn’t a new observation (Robert Christgau rightly identified the Side B’s formula as “consolation for their loyal fans — a little sexism, a lot of pyrotechnics, and a standard HM bass attack” in his Consumer Guide review), but it’s one that colors the record (and ones by Van Halen’s hard rock and metal brethren) more on this milestone than on the previous. Heard with fresh ears, the rock is still untouchable (“Hot for Teacher” in particular would sound as good if not better as an instrumental), but the lyrics don’t hold up quite as easily.

Is it possible to hold space in your heart for a record like 1984’s stunning singles while simultaneously raising a critical eyebrow at its steak-headed sexuality? In some cases, probably not. In others, if you ask critic Fiona Sturges, the answer is unreservedly yes. In her essay from the 2017 collection Under My Thumb: Songs That Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them, Sturges wrestles with the dissonance between her own feminism and the casual misogyny of her own favorite band, the like-minded AC/DC. Faced with a burgeoning Bon Scott fan of a daughter, Sturges reveals her philosophy for mitigating the conflict between personal beliefs and popular entertainment:

“I’ve made a point of offering my child an alternative narrative — one in which women can be proud of their bodies, exist apart from the male gaze and not just reject but hoot with laughter at the moronic archetypes presented in advertising, the media, film, TV and music. It’s worth noting that none of this — at least so far — has come at the expense of her enjoyment. She will roll her eyes at the teeny-weeny waists and bulging eyes of Disney heroines, but will still happily watch the movies.”

Like any good 35th birthday, 1984’s latest anniversary arrived with a healthy amount of ambivalence. For the band, the record was as much of an end as it was a beginning. Van Halen’s original and best iteration would last just 14 more months; in the years since, those Lost Boys either grew up (Alex Van Halen, who went sober in 1987) or leaned even harder into their own extended adolescence (David Lee Roth, last seen hawking a skincare product to keep tattoos from fading). In their wake, they left six records made at the zenith of rock and roll hedonism, music designed for uncomplicated good times that, inevitably, became complicated itself.

Lost weekends end. The American boyhood dream changes. Someone has to clean up all those food fights. We’ll always have the music to remember them by, the way things were then. What we do with it now? That’s your call.

“Drop Dead Legs” is a literal list of women’s body parts, “I’ll Wait” finds David Lee Roth ogling and obsessing over a pretty lady in a magazine, and “Girl Gone Bad” helped inspire this summation from Chuck Klosterman: “Do not discount Van Halen as a band who could only write about women who became porn stars; as evidenced here, they were equally proficient at writing about women who became prostitutes.”

The album has aged just fine from where I sit, in that pretty much the tunes I REALLY liked on it back then (Drop Dead Legs, Girl Gone Bad, House of Pain, Hot For Teacher) are still my favorites from the album. The tunes I was sort of lukewarm on then (Top Jimmy, Panama) I'm still sort of lukewarm on. The tunes I wasn't crazy about at all back then (Jump, I'll Wait), I haven't gotten any fonder of since.

I mean, to be sure, Roth was approaching women in his lyrics back then in a manner that people today would say was misogynist or demeaning to women or sexist or whatever. And...so? It was what it was.

That guy should choke on his tofu and kale salad. "The American boyhood dream changes". WTF!!!
What!? Did we raise a generation of boys who don't lust over beautiful women? BullShite I say!

Maybe they've just figured out how to do it stealthy. Let's not forget we're all here because of a sex act. It's what we do.
Sure cat-calling and all is pretty lame, but if you're not doing it, your thinking it. And that is what DLR was trying to get across.
He would say what your thinking.

It perfectly represents the fantasies of every young boy (those who were not confused) who's female school teacher was very nice to look at.

VH just laid it out right in front of you and it still works and is funny.

That video works fine for a teenage fantasy vision relevant to the early 80's culture... Not so, at all today...

Go parade that video around now and you'll draw the angst of not only the #metoo crowd, gender neutral fanatics and the folks hell bent on locking up women who sexually prey on innocent school boys...

I'd say file that cultural gem in the same box as black-face, sexual predators, KKK and Native American Halloween costumes... best keep those thoughts and imagery in your head if you think they've aged well and should be considered culturally... OK...

That video works fine for a teenage fantasy vision relevant to the early 80's culture... Not so, at all today...

Go parade that video around now and you'll draw the angst of not only the #metoo crowd, gender neutral fanatics and the folks hell bent on locking up women who sexually prey on innocent school boys...

I'd say file that cultural gem in the same box as black-face, sexual predators, KKK and Native American Halloween costumes... best keep those thoughts and imagery in your head if you think they've aged well and should be considered culturally... OK...

That's the problem with today's culture. Things like comedy (which is what the HFT video is) especially suffers because of it.

The album has aged just fine from where I sit, in that pretty much the tunes I REALLY liked on it back then (Drop Dead Legs, Girl Gone Bad, House of Pain, Hot For Teacher) are still my favorites from the album. The tunes I was sort of lukewarm on then (Top Jimmy, Panama) I'm still sort of lukewarm on. The tunes I wasn't crazy about at all back then (Jump, I'll Wait), I haven't gotten any fonder of since.

I mean, to be sure, Roth was approaching women in his lyrics back then in a manner that people today would say was misogynist or demeaning to women or sexist or whatever. And...so? It was what it was.

This fucking guy writing. I mean, is there somethings that are a bit dated as far as references to women? yeah. But thank God we now have only feminist anthems like "Blurred Lines" and about 50% of hip hop! FFS sake, STFU! How fucking dated can "Hot for Teacher" be when you have young female teachers regularly having sex with sometimes very young students?

I don't recall any lyrics where Dave referred to women as "bitches" or anything like that...

No shit! The first song on 5150 (Good Enough) literally describes a woman like a piece of meat. But Sammy was supposed to be the "sensitive" one

Or when Hagar claimed that he had sex with groupies under the stage during Ed's guitar solos during the Monsters of Rock, of course this only came out after the Def Leppard VH1 episode where they said the same thing during Elliot's call and response thing during the Hysteria tour...

By comparison, that may well be true...although to be certain I'd have to actually read the bulk of Hagar's lyrics for those Van Halen songs, and I...just...really would rather not (it's bad enough that I remember more of said lyrics than I already want to).

I mean, I never found Roth's lyrics in Van Halen to be particularly sexist...certainly not in comparison to, say, Ted Nugent. Or Gene Simmons. Not in terms of demeaning women or putting them down.

It's just the select hypersensitivity of the culture today, where one can take one element out of context and use that to paint a broad, inaccurate picture. I mean, the Hot For Teacher video certainly isn't subtle.

I don't even think Hagar lyrically re: Van Halen was necessarily sexist in a malicious way, rather he was just meatheadedly trying to write Rothesque lyrics he thought fans of CVH would like. That whole Good Enough song, down to the cheesy post-guitar solo rap (a la attempts at shades of Everybody Wants Some) was just Hagar trying to cop a Roth. Just a somewhat cynical attempt to convey what he thought male teenaged fans of the band expected from a Van Halen record. That Hagar got this wrong is in no way surprising.

I mean, I assume it was cynical: if it was sincere on Hagar's part that just makes it even lamer.

When Hagar was writing lyrics like that on 5150 he was 39 which seemed like your old man cat calling your fellow students - creepy.

By the time Roth was that age he was writing the YFLM album not Everybody Wants Some.

When I first heard Good Enough, right off the bat I remember thinking Hagar was copping a Roth, and getting it wrong. It came across as inauthentic. Then, as Vinnie Velvet mentioned, 2 albums later he's churning out drivel like Black And Blue, with a Dr.Suess rhyme scheme and all the charm of a Motley Crue tune. And along the lines of what you say, Sesh, such basic 'let's fuck' lyrics are perhaps understandable from a hair metal meathead frontman in his early 20s. Hagar is in his late 30s to mid 40s by this point: clearly he has little in the arsenal other than Hallmark Moon/June-level aspirational sentiments or 'let's fuck' tunes to offer.

With Roth, there was some subtlety and wit there, even when he was in his 20s fronting CVH. Naturally, those qualities sailed right over Hagar's head, so when he tried to mimic Dave in terms of approach he fell into the same trap a lot of those post-CVH LA bands did when they were borrowing from what CVH did, where the guitar players took the flash of Eddie's style without - for a large part - the great songwriting hooks and riffs and the lead singers got the base sexual elements Dave projected without the sense of humor.

I always thought Hagar's entire career was copping other people and being inauthentic - hopping on any trend that came along from dewy-pop lovy wuvy songs to tired rockers rather than doing anything innovative or interesting....

When I first heard Good Enough, right off the bat I remember thinking Hagar was copping a Roth, and getting it wrong. It came across as inauthentic. Then, as Vinnie Velvet mentioned, 2 albums later he's churning out drivel like Black And Blue, with a Dr.Suess rhyme scheme and all the charm of a Motley Crue tune. And along the lines of what you say, Sesh, such basic 'let's fuck' lyrics are perhaps understandable from a hair metal meathead frontman in his early 20s. Hagar is in his late 30s to mid 40s by this point: clearly he has little in the arsenal other than Hallmark Moon/June-level aspirational sentiments or 'let's fuck' tunes to offer.

With Roth, there was some subtlety and wit there, even when he was in his 20s fronting CVH. Naturally, those qualities sailed right over Hagar's head, so when he tried to mimic Dave in terms of approach he fell into the same trap a lot of those post-CVH LA bands did when they were borrowing from what CVH did, where the guitar players took the flash of Eddie's style without - for a large part - the great songwriting hooks and riffs and the lead singers got the base sexual elements Dave projected without the sense of humor.

Great post.

And that's what separates CVH from all the other bands that tried to copy them - including Van Hagar!

I always thought Hagar's entire career was copping other people and being inauthentic - hopping on any trend that came along from dewy-pop lovy wuvy songs to tired rockers rather than doing anything innovative or interesting....

Certainly applies to his solo career in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Very derivative of what other bands did in terms of guitar work (riffs, hooks, etc.). Haven't listened beyond a few tunes to his post-Van Hagar stuff (nor do I intend to) but I'd be hard-pressed to imagine as a solo artist he has gotten any better. There wasn't anything Chickenfoot did that smacked of being particularly innovative to my ears in terms of songwriting even when Satriani was playing with them. Then again, Satriani has always been more of a technician than a composer when I consider his overall career.

The two things Hagar was involved with that approached quality were Montrose and Van Hagar. Each of those bands had some decent to good moments, but to my ears said moments all had to do with what was going on in instrumental terms rather than the vocals or lyrics...and Hagar really wasn't responsible for the instrumental moments either of those bands had, quality or otherwise.

That's the problem with today's culture. Things like comedy (which is what the HFT video is) especially suffers because of it.

Yeah, I'm thinking we'll soon be calling this the butt-hurt era...

Sadly... what many considered harmless, satirical comedy during their younger days... it's now being seriously classified as harmful racism, sexism, oppression, whatever negative label you want to apply to it. If you give it some sincere thought... in some cases, maybe these things we innocently thought were harmless... were not.

The challenge I question... Should one be made to feel guilty for the cultural things now deemed inappropriate in the time period they grew up in..?

I have no plans to fucking apologize to anyone for growing up in the 60's/70's/80's...

Sadly... what many considered harmless, satirical comedy during their younger days... it's now being seriously classified as harmful racism, sexism, oppression, whatever negative label you want to apply to it. If you give it some sincere thought... in some cases, maybe these things we innocently thought were harmless... were not.

The challenge I question... Should one be made to feel guilty for the cultural things now deemed inappropriate in the time period they grew up in..?

I have no plans to fucking apologize to anyone for growing up in the 60's/70's/80's...

Which, I mean...CVH was never considered kid-safe or family-friendly entertainment back in the day, for starters. And even just a casual glance at the top music acts of the last 15 years from the point of view of an old geezer such as myself...I mean, it's not like exploiting sexuality to sell records/tv shows/movies has exactly tapered off in any way with the new century: does one really need to go back nearly 4 decades to make that argument?

Admittedly not one of John's best. Hard to believe he's the same guy who wrote "Imagine".
Actually, the song was directly inspired by Elvis Presley's "Baby Let's Play House", which has the following verse.....

Now listen to me, baby
Try to understand.
I'd rather see you dead, little girl,
Than to be with another man.
Now baby,
Come back, baby, come.
Come back, baby, come.
Come back, baby, I wanna play house with you.

I always thought Hagar's entire career was copping other people and being inauthentic - hopping on any trend that came along from dewy-pop lovy wuvy songs to tired rockers rather than doing anything innovative or interesting....

I don't think he ever got over his Robert Plant fetish. Not that he ever sounded remotely like Plant, but he tried to look like him. And even that last band of his was essentially a Zep cover band, right down to having Jason Bonham as a drummer. I'll bet Sammy is insanely jealous of the kid from Greta Van Fleet who actually CAN sing like Plant.

Which, I mean...CVH was never considered kid-safe or family-friendly entertainment back in the day, for starters. And even just a casual glance at the top music acts of the last 15 years from the point of view of an old geezer such as myself...I mean, it's not like exploiting sexuality to sell records/tv shows/movies has exactly tapered off in any way with the new century: does one really need to go back nearly 4 decades to make that argument?

Most of the content of popular music, especially in the last 60 years, has been more of a reflection of the life/culture of 20-30 year olds... never kid safe... generally teen appealing... but considering the age range and content it's actually deeply "family-friendly" in the sense that all that partying and sex, sooner or later, leads to babies and the starting of... a family!

I'd deem that wholesome and the butt-hurt folks should be damn thankful that their existence sprang from the anthem of Everybody Wants Some and Girls Gone Wild...

Didn't have a problem with the lyrics in 1984, don't have a problem with them now. And is "steak-headed sexuality" all you got? Get the fuck out of here with that. If you want "steak-headed sexuality", hold my beer and i'll get Sam on the phone for you.

Didn't have a problem with the lyrics in 1984, don't have a problem with them now. And is "steak-headed sexuality" all you got? Get the fuck out of here with that. If you want "steak-headed sexuality", hold my beer and i'll get Sam on the phone for you.

Never heard the term "steak-headed sexuality"... googled it. Came up empty.

I can still remember getting that right after winter break in 8th Grade. Got home and popped that tape in and that fade out of 1984 and into Jump goosed the shit out of me. I remember hearing all the clanking around sounds in HFT and thinking they must have been having a party in the studio🤟😎🍺.

I can still remember getting that right after winter break in 8th Grade. Got home and popped that tape in and that fade out of 1984 and into Jump goosed the shit out of me. I remember hearing all the clanking around sounds in HFT and thinking they must have been having a party in the studio.

Wish to God they would play it in its entirety w the original lineup on tour this summer

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Meh. Jump just never did that much for me. Simply a visceral thing: that type of music, along with I'll Wait, isn't what I wanted from CVH. Now, I wouldn't deny for a moment that Jump was an enormous commercial success for CVH and became one of the few tunes they created where it ended up having a broad/universal appeal that went far beyond that of rock audiences. Long as Van Halen and/or Roth is touring, I'd imagine they/he will be closing the show with Jump: it'd be hard for to imagine that NOT happening. Have always liked the video as well (in some ways, more than the song itself): cheap, simple performance video.

Didn't have a problem with the lyrics in 1984, don't have a problem with them now. And is "steak-headed sexuality" all you got? Get the fuck out of here with that. If you want "steak-headed sexuality", hold my beer and i'll get Sam on the phone for you.

The one thing I did notice back in the 1980s - and I think I've probably mentioned this before - is that the Jump track made Van Halen appealing to the goody-two shoes kids in my school who prior to that considered Van Halen a party band for stoners. After Roth left, Hagar joined and 5150 was released, these preppy kids who had looked down on the party crowd were suddenly saying how great the band was and enjoying the shit out of Why Can't This Be Love, Dreams and Love Comes Walking In.

The addition of Hagar made Van Halen safe and acceptable to upper middle class parents.